By: J.L. Orango

Before you call this anger,
call it arithmetic.

Eight hundred and forty million.

Nearly one woman in three.

And before somebody says
that happens over there-

bring me the atlas.

Open it.

Anywhere.

I will wait.

Because violence against women
has learned every language.

It has crossed every border.

It has prayed beneath every god,
signed every marriage certificate,
lived in mansions and tents,
university dormitories and refugee camps,
farmhouses, apartments, suburbs,
palaces, reservations, villages,
cities with women’s shelters
and cities without them.

It has been called
love,
discipline,
tradition,
privacy,
marriage,
family business,
a misunderstanding,
a bad night,
a domestic dispute.

Anything-

anything-

except what happened to her.

So let us stop speaking in euphemisms.

Let us read the map.

•  •  •

Afghanistan – 50.7%.

Albania – 18.7%.

Algeria – no comparable estimate here.

Andorra – no comparable estimate here.

Angola – 33.7%.

Antigua and Barbuda – no comparable estimate here.

Argentina – 34.8%.

Armenia – 9%.

Australia – 20.9%.

Austria – 18.1%.

Azerbaijan – 15%.

Do not race past those numbers.

A percentage is a room full of women
someone has converted into a decimal.

A percentage had a first kiss.

A percentage packed lunches.

A percentage learned how quietly
a front door can be closed.

•  •  •

The Bahamas – 25%.

Bahrain – no comparable estimate here.

Bangladesh – 48.8%.

Barbados – no comparable estimate here.

Belarus – 19.1%.

Belgium – 16.5%.

Belize – 22%.

Benin – 18.5%.

Bhutan – 18.3%.

Bolivia – 52.6%.

Bosnia and Herzegovina – 9.6%.

Botswana – 36%.

Brazil – 19.6%.

Brunei – no comparable estimate here.

Bulgaria – 7.5%.

Burkina Faso – 17.3%.

Burundi – 47.5%.

And no-

7.5 is not victory.

Do not make women compete
for the privilege of being sufficiently harmed.

Do not hold one country beside another
and congratulate the one
whose women bleed less often.

The acceptable number is zero.

Keep reading.

•  •  •

Cabo Verde – 17.1%.

Cambodia – 10.9%.

Cameroon – 35.9%.

Canada – 23.3%.

Central African Republic – 29%.

Chad – 27.6%.

Chile – 23.3%.

China – 19.4%.

Colombia – 30.8%.

Comoros – 8.2%.

Democratic Republic of the Congo – 47.8%.

Republic of the Congo – no comparable estimate here.

Costa Rica – 35.1%.

Côte d’Ivoire – 20.2%.

Croatia – 11.1%.

Cuba – 8.3%.

Cyprus – 31.6%.

Czechia – 12.3%.

And now you understand
why I refuse the phrase

women’s issue.

An issue is something discussed
around a conference table.

This is happening in kitchens.

Bedrooms.

Cars.

Bathrooms.

Behind locked doors.

Beside sleeping children.

During pregnancies.

After separations.

Before court dates.

After police leave.

Call it what it is:

a human emergency
with women carrying most of the bodies.

•  •  •

Denmark – 26.1%.

Djibouti – 9.8%.

Dominica – no comparable estimate here.

Dominican Republic – 26.4%.

Ecuador – 24.8%.

Egypt – 32.6%.

El Salvador – 15.8%.

Equatorial Guinea – 53%.

Eritrea – no comparable estimate here.

Estonia – 21.8%.

Eswatini – no comparable estimate here.

Ethiopia – 27.2%.

Fiji – 59.5%.

Finland – 36.3%.

France – 18.2%.

Stop.

Fifty-nine point five.

Do not picture a statistic.

Picture women.

Do not ask
what is wrong with those people.

Ask what human beings have built
that allows violence against women
to reproduce itself
under different flags.

Patriarchy does not need
the same religion,

the same colour,

the same government,

the same language,

or the same history

to recognize one of its oldest instructions:

make her afraid.

•  •  •

Gabon – 37.6%.

Gambia – 34.8%.

Georgia – 7.4%.

Germany – 14.8%.

Ghana – 24.2%.

Greece – 22%.

Grenada – 27.4%.

Guatemala – 20%.

Guinea – 36.3%.

Guinea-Bissau – no comparable estimate here.

Guyana – 35.5%.

Haiti – 25.6%.

Holy See – no comparable estimate here.

Honduras – 25.6%.

Hungary – 42.3%.

Iceland – 24.1%.

India – 29.9%.

Indonesia – 11.6%.

Iran – no comparable estimate here.

Iraq – 19.7%.

Ireland – 24%.

Israel – no comparable estimate here.

Italy – 14.1%.

And where the database gives me nothing,

I will not write zero.

I will write:

we do not have a comparable estimate.

Because absence of measurement
is not evidence of absence.

A blank box cannot testify.

A woman can.

Listen to her.

•  •  •

Jamaica – 20%.

Japan – 14.1%.

Jordan – 11.4%.

Kazakhstan – 15.6%.

Kenya – 31.2%.

Kiribati – 54.4%.

Kuwait – no comparable estimate here.

Kyrgyzstan – 23.5%.

Laos – 14%.

Latvia – 14.4%.

Lebanon – 39.2%.

Lesotho – 28.1%.

Liberia – 34.8%.

Libya – no comparable estimate here.

Liechtenstein – no comparable estimate here.

Lithuania – 13.3%.

Luxembourg – 28.7%.

Madagascar – 28.1%.

Malawi – 35.9%.

Malaysia – 14.3%.

Maldives – 14%.

Mali – 39.8%.

Malta – 15.8%.

Marshall Islands – 42.9%.

Mauritania – 9.2%.

Mauritius – no comparable estimate here.

Mexico – 21.3%.

Micronesia – 30.9%.

Moldova – 28.1%.

Monaco – no comparable estimate here.

Mongolia – 27.9%.

Montenegro – 8.3%.

Morocco – no comparable estimate here.

Mozambique – 23.6%.

Myanmar – 18.5%.

Tell me again

that she chose him.

Tell me again

that she should have left sooner.

Tell me again

that she should have known.

Tell me again

that he seemed like such a nice man.

Tell me again

that there are two sides.

There are almost two hundred countries
coming down this page

and somehow

we are still cross-examining the woman.

•  •  •

Namibia – 26.1%.

Nauru – 45.4%.

Nepal – 26.7%.

Netherlands – 16.7%.

New Zealand – 27.2%.

Nicaragua – 19.7%.

Niger – no comparable estimate here.

Nigeria – 31.3%.

North Korea – no comparable estimate here.

North Macedonia – 9.5%.

Norway – 21.5%.

Oman – no comparable estimate here.

Pakistan – 24.9%.

Palau – 23.2%.

Palestine – 34.2%.

Panama – 16.3%.

Papua New Guinea – 56.1%.

Paraguay – 19.8%.

Peru – 24.5%.

Philippines – 6.7%.

Poland – 10.1%.

Portugal – 9.8%.

Qatar – no comparable estimate here.

And before anyone reaches for race,

religion,

poverty,

war,

immigration,

the Global South,

some convenient explanation
that places misogyny safely somewhere else-

Norway is on the page.

Canada is on the page.

France is on the page.

Australia is on the page.

The United States is coming.

Women do not need
a particular kind of country

to be endangered by men who believe
love gives them ownership.

•  •  •

Romania – 35.7%.

Russia – no comparable estimate here.

Rwanda – 36.7%.

Saint Kitts and Nevis – no comparable estimate here.

Saint Lucia – no comparable estimate here.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – no comparable estimate here.

Samoa – 35.3%.

San Marino – no comparable estimate here.

São Tomé and Príncipe – 30%.

Saudi Arabia – no comparable estimate here.

Senegal – 20.7%.

Serbia – 9.3%.

Seychelles – no comparable estimate here.

Sierra Leone – 54.4%.

Singapore – 6.6%.

Slovakia – 28.4%.

Slovenia – 10.7%.

Solomon Islands – 58%.

Somalia – 15.7%.

South Africa – 21.8%.

South Korea – 11.5%.

South Sudan – 54.9%.

Spain – 17.3%.

Sri Lanka – 17.6%.

Sudan – no comparable estimate here.

Suriname – 30.4%.

Sweden – 23.9%.

Switzerland – 12.9%.

Syria – no comparable estimate here.

And this is only one category.

Only intimate partners.

Only physical and sexual violence
captured by this measure.

We haven’t counted every threat.

Every stalker.

Every trafficked girl.

Every forced marriage.

Every workplace assault.

Every woman harassed on her walk home.

Every child taught to fear becoming female.

Every rape committed as a weapon of war.

Every woman disappeared.

Every girl cut.

Every woman murdered because
some man decided her leaving
was an insult punishable by death.

The number is already unbearable

and still

the number is incomplete.

•  •  •

Tajikistan – 26.5%.

Tanzania – 33.9%.

Thailand – 32.5%.

Timor-Leste – 40.5%.

Togo – 21.8%.

Tonga – 19.8%.

Trinidad and Tobago – 28.3%.

Tunisia – 20.1%.

Türkiye – 36.6%.

Turkmenistan – 11.8%.

Tuvalu – 37.7%.

Uganda – 46.6%.

Ukraine – 23.7%.

United Arab Emirates – no comparable estimate here.

United Kingdom – 25.4%.

United States – 28.3%.

Uruguay – 23.6%.

Uzbekistan – no comparable estimate here.

Vanuatu – 55.7%.

Venezuela – 20.4%.

Vietnam – 24.7%.

Yemen – no comparable estimate here.

Zambia – 39.4%.

Zimbabwe – 40.5%.

There.

The whole atlas.

One hundred and ninety-five countries.

Not one race.

Not one religion.

Not one continent.

Not one political system.

Not one economic class.

Not one kind of woman.

And these numbers do not even tell
the whole story.

They tell us enough.

•  •  •

Now add another number.

Nearly 50,000 women and girls
killed in a single year

by intimate partners
or family members.

One hundred and thirty-seven
every day.

So while you were making coffee-

a woman.

While you answered your email-

a woman.

While you drove the children to school-

a woman.

While politicians debated terminology-

a woman.

While somebody typed
not all men

beneath another woman’s obituary-

another woman.

And another.

And another.

Do not tell me
this is a collection of isolated tragedies.

Isolation does not happen
one hundred and thirty-seven times a day.

This is architecture.

This is inheritance.

This is power.

•  •  •

And I need to say something else.

Because solidarity becomes ugly
when it becomes possession.

I am not Congolese.

I will not tell a Congolese woman
what Congo has done to her.

I am not Sudanese.

Palestinian.

Afghan.

Mexican.

Indigenous to somebody else’s land.

I cannot borrow another woman’s history
just because her suffering makes
my poem louder.

Her pain is not my metaphor.

Her dead are not my literary device.

I will not stand in front of her.

I will stand beside her.

I will cite her.

Read her.

Believe her.

Buy her books.

Share her reporting.

Learn the organizations already doing the work.

Pass the microphone
when the microphone belongs to her.

And use my own voice
where silence would make me complicit.

Because I do know something
about being a woman
inside a world capable
of explaining away what men do to us.

My experience does not make me
an expert on hers.

It makes indifference impossible.

•  •  •

So this is not a poem asking

which country is worst?

Wrong question.

This is not the Olympics of female suffering.

There will be no medal
for the woman whose bruises were darkest.

No podium
for the country that buried the most daughters.

No acceptable percentage.

No culturally appropriate amount of terror.

No respectable amount of rape.

No statistically insignificant murdered woman.

The question is:

How many women have to tell us
that they are afraid
before female fear stops being treated
as an ordinary feature of being alive?

How many girls must learn
to hold keys between their fingers?

How many mothers must text:

home safe

as though arriving alive
is an achievement?

How many women must calculate
whether saying no
will make him angry?

Whether leaving
will make him lethal?

Whether reporting
will make anyone believe her?

Whether surviving
will somehow become evidence
that it wasn’t that bad?

•  •  •

Open the atlas again.

Look at all those borders.

Humans drew every one of them.

Women bleed across them anyway.

And perhaps that is the rage:

we have managed to build nations,

armies,

courts,

banks,

universities,

religions,

governments,

satellites,

skyscrapers,

machines capable of leaving the planet-

and still have not managed
to make this planet reliably safe
for the women living on it.

So no.

I will not lower my voice.

Not because every woman’s story is mine.

Because it isn’t.

Because hers belongs to her.

And because her life should not have to resemble mine
before I consider it sacred.

Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Every latitude.

Every longitude.

Every colour.

Every language.

Every god.

Every border.

Hear us.

Not because women are weak.

Not because women need saving.

Because women have been surviving
what the world keeps refusing to stop.

And survival

should never have been

the entrance fee

for being a woman

on Earth.

###

SOURCE NOTE FOR DRAFTING

Country percentages in this working draft are presented as modeled lifetime estimates of physical and/or sexual intimate-partner violence among ever-partnered women ages 15+ and were assembled from WHO/UN interagency data as displayed through the World Bank Gender Data Portal.

A line reading ‘no comparable estimate here’ means a comparable value was not available in the referenced dataset. It does not mean violence is absent in that country.

The global framing also draws on WHO reporting that roughly 840 million women and girls have experienced partner or sexual violence in their lifetime, and UN Women/UNODC reporting that nearly 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members in 2024 (about 137 per day).

Before publication or submission, all figures should receive a final source-by-source fact check and the poem should retain full source documentation in an accompanying note or endnotes.

###

J.L. Orango is a British Columbia writer whose work examines survival, coercive control, motherhood, memory, accountability, and the life built after violence.